analysis strategic management cases

P A R T 4Case Analysis

PART OUTL INE

13. Analyzing Strategic Management Cases

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Chapter 1

AnalyzingGoals andObjectives

Chapter 13

CaseAnalysis

Chapter 2

Analyzingthe ExternalEnvironment

Chapter 3

Analyzingthe Internal

Environment

Chapter 4

AssessingIntellectual

Capital

Strategy Analysis

Chapter 5

FormulatingBusiness-Level

Strategies

Chapter 6

FormulatingCorporate-Level

Strategies

Chapter 7

FormulatingInternationalStrategies

Chapter 8

FormulatingInternet

Strategies

Strategy Formulation

Chapter 9

Implementation:StrategicControls

Chapter 10

Implementation:Organization

Design

Chapter 11

StrategicLeadership:

Excellence, Ethicsand Change

Chapter 12

StrategicLeadership:Fostering

Entrepreneurship

Strategy Implementation

C H A P T E R

Analyzing StrategicManagement Cases

13

CHAPTER OBJECTIVES

After reading this chapter, you should have a good understanding of:

� How strategic case analysis is used to simulate real-world experiences.

� How analyzing strategic management cases can help develop the ability todifferentiate, speculate, and integrate when evaluating complex businessproblems.

� The steps involved in conducting a strategic management case analysis.

� How to get the most out of case analysis.

� How to use the strategic insights and material from each of the 12 previouschapters in the text to analyze issues posed by strategic management cases.

Case analysis is one of the most effective ways to learn strategic management. Itprovides a complement to other methods of instruction by asking you to use thetools and techniques of strategic management to deal with an actual business

situation. Strategy cases include detailed descriptions of management challenges facedby executives and business owners. By studying the background and analyzing thestrategic predicaments posed by a case, you first see that the circumstances businessesconfront are often difficult and complex. Then you are asked what decisions you wouldmake to address the situation in the case and how the actions you recommend will af-fect the company. Thus, the processes of analysis, formulation, and implementation thathave been addressed by this textbook can be applied in a real-life situation.

In this chapter we will discuss the role of case analysis as a learning tool in boththe classroom and the real world. One of the benefits of strategic case analysis is to de-velop the ability to differentiate, speculate, and integrate. We will also describe how to

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conduct a case analysis and address techniques for deriving the greatest benefit from the process. Finally, we will discuss how case analysis in a classroom setting can en-hance the process of analyzing, making decisions, and taking action in real-worldstrategic situations. �

WHY ANALYZE STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT CASES?It is often said that the key to finding good answers is to ask good questions. Strategicmanagers and business leaders are required to evaluate options, make choices, and find solutions to the challenges they face every day. To do so, they must learn to ask theright questions. The study of strategic management poses the same challenge. Theprocess of analyzing, decision making, and implementing strategic actions raises manygood questions.

� Why do some firms succeed and others fail?� Why are some companies higher performers than others?� What information is needed in the strategic planning process.� How do competing values and beliefs affect strategic decision making?� What skills and capabilities are needed to implement a strategy effectively?

How does a student of strategic management answer those questions? By strategiccase analysis. Case analysis simulates the real-world experience that strategic managersand company leaders face as they try to determine how best to run their companies. Itplaces students in the middle of an actual situation and challenges them to figure outwhat to do.1

Asking the right questions is just the beginning of case analysis. In the previouschapters we have discussed issues and challenges that managers face and provided an-alytical frameworks for understanding the situation. But once the analysis is complete,decisions have to be made. Case analysis forces you to choose among different optionsand set forth a plan of action based on your choices. But even then the job is not done.Strategic case analysis also requires that you address how you will implement the planand the implications of choosing one course of action over another.

A strategic management case is a detailed description of a challenging situationfaced by an organization.2 It usually includes a chronology of events and extensive sup-port materials such as financial statements, product lists, and transcripts of interviewswith employees. Although names or locations are sometimes changed to provideanonymity, cases usually report the facts of a situation as authentically as possible.

One of the main reasons to analyze strategic management cases is to develop anability to evaluate business situations critically. In case analysis, memorizing key termsand conceptual frameworks is not enough. To analyze a case, it is important that you gobeyond textbook prescriptions and quick answers. It requires you to look deeply intothe information that is provided and root out the essential issues and causes of a com-pany’s problems.

The types of skills that are required to prepare an effective strategic case analysiscan benefit you in actual business situations. Case analysis adds to the overall learning

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experience by helping you acquire or improve skills that may not be taught in a typicallecture course. Three capabilities that can be learned by conducting case analysis areespecially useful to strategic managers—the ability to differentiate, speculate, and inte-grate.3 Here’s how case analysis can enhance those skills.

� Differentiate. Effective strategic management requires that many differentelements of a situation be evaluated at once. This is also true in case analysis.When analyzing cases, it is important to isolate critical facts, evaluate whetherassumptions are useful or faulty, and to distinguish between good and badinformation. Differentiating between the factors that are influencing the situationpresented by a case is necessary for making a good analysis. Strategicmanagement also involves understanding that problems are often complex andmultilayered. This applies to case analysis as well. Ask whether the case dealswith operational, business-level, or corporate issues. Do the problems stem fromweaknesses in the internal value chain or threats in the external environment? Digdeep. Being too quick to accept the easiest or least controversial answer willusually fail to get to the heart of the problem.

� Speculate. Strategic managers need to be able to use their imagination to envisionan explanation or solution that might not readily be apparent. The same is truewith case analysis. Being able to imagine different scenarios or contemplate theoutcome of a decision can aid the analysis. Managers also have to deal withuncertainty since most decisions are made without complete knowledge of thecircumstances. This is also true in case analysis. Case materials often seem to bemissing data or the information provided is contradictory. The ability to speculateabout details that are unknown or the consequences of an action can be helpful.

� Integrate. Strategy involves looking at the big picture and having anorganizationwide perspective. Strategic case analysis is no different. Even thoughthe chapters in this textbook divide the material into various topics that mayapply to different parts of an organization, all of this information must beintegrated into one set of recommendations that will affect the whole company. Astrategic manager needs to comprehend how all the factors that influence theorganization will interact. This also applies to case analysis. Changes made inone part of the organization affect other parts. Thus, a holistic perspective thatintegrates the impact of various decisions and environmental influences on allparts of the organization is needed.

In business, these three activities sometimes “compete” with each other for your at-tention. For example, some decision makers may have a natural ability to differentiateamong elements of a problem but are not able to integrate them very well. Others haveenough innate creativity to imagine solutions or fill in the blanks when information ismissing. But they may have a difficult time when faced with hard numbers or cold facts.Even so, each of these skills is important. It is the ability to simultaneously make dis-tinctions and envision the whole, and to imagine a future scenario while staying focusedon the present, that is the mark of a good strategic manager. Thus, another reason toconduct case analysis is to help you develop and exercise your ability to differentiate,speculate, and integrate.

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Case analysis takes the student through the whole cycle of activity that a managerwould face. Beyond the textbook descriptions of concepts and examples, case analysisasks you to “walk a mile in the shoes” of the strategic decision maker and learn to eval-uate situations critically. Executives and owners must make decisions every day withlimited information and a swirl of business activity going on around them. Consider theexample of Sapient Health Networks, an Internet start-up that had to undergo someanalysis and problem solving just to survive. Strategy Spotlight 13.1 describes how thiscompany transformed itself after a serious self-examination during a time of crisis.

STRATEGY SPOTLIGHT 13.1 | ANALYSIS, DECISION MAKING,AND CHANGE AT SAPIENT HEALTH NETWORK

Sapient Health Network (SHN) had gotten off to a goodstart. CEO Jim Kean and his two cofounders had raised$5 million in investor capital to launch their vision: anInternet based health care information subscriptionservice. The idea was to create an Internet communityfor people suffering from chronic diseases. It wouldprovide members with expert information, resources, amessage board, and chat rooms so that people sufferingfrom the same ailments could provide each other withinformation and support. “Who would be more vora-cious consumers of information than people who arefaced with life-changing, life-threatening illnesses?”thought Bill Kelly, one of SHN’s cofounders. Initialmarket research and beta tests had supported that view.

During the beta tests, however, the service hadbeen offered for free. The troubles began when SHNtried to convert its trial subscribers into paying ones.Fewer than 5 percent signed on, far less than the 15 per-cent the company had projected. Sapient hired a vicepresident of marketing who launched an aggressive pro-motion, but after three months of campaigning SHN stillhad only 500 members. SHN was now burning through$400,000 per month, with little revenue to show for it.

At that point, according to SHN board memberSusan Clymer, “there was a lot of scrambling aroundtrying to figure out how we could wring value out ofwhat we’d already accomplished.” One thing SHN hadcreated was an expert software system which had twocomponents: an “intelligent profile engine” (IPE) and an“intelligent query engine” (IQE). SHN used this systemto collect detailed information from its subscribers.

SHN was sure that the expert system was itsbiggest selling point. But how to use it? Then the

founders remembered that the original business planhad suggested there might be a market for aggregatedata about patient populations gathered from the web-site. Could they turn the business around by selling pa-tient data? To analyze the possibility, Kean tried out theidea on the market research arm of a huge East Coasthealth care conglomerate. The officials were intrigued.SHN realized that its expert system could become amarket research tool.

Once the analysis was completed, the foundersmade the decision: They would still create Internet com-munities for chronically ill patients, but the servicewould be free. And they would transform SHN from acompany that processed subscriptions to one that soldmarket research.

Finally, they enacted the changes. Some of it waspainful, including laying off 18 employees. Instead,SHN needed more health care industry expertise. It evenhired an interim CEO, Craig Davenport, a 25-year vet-eran of the industry, to steer the company in its new di-rection. Finally, SHN had to communicate a new mes-sage to its members. It began by reimbursing the$10,000 of subscription fees they had paid.

All of this paid off dramatically in a matter of justtwo years. Revenues jumped to $1.9 million in 1998.Early in 1999 SHN was purchased by WebMD and lessthan a year later, WebMD merged with Healtheon. Thecombined company still operates a thriving office out ofSHN’s original location in Portland, Oregon.

Sources: K. Brenneman, “Healtheon/WebMD’s Local Office IsThriving,” Business Journal of Portland, June 2, 2000; D. Raths,“Reversal of Fortune,” Inc. Technology, 2 (1998), pp. 52–62.

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As you can see from the experience of Sapient Health Networks, businesses areoften faced with immediate challenges that threaten their life. The Sapient case illus-trates how the strategic management process helped it survive. First, the company real-istically assessed the environment, evaluated the marketplace, and analyzed its re-sources. Then it made tough decisions which included shifting its market focus, hiringand firing, and redeploying its assets. Finally, it took action. The result was not onlyfirm survival, but a quick turnaround leading to rapid success.

HOW TO CONDUCT A CASE ANALYSISThe process of analyzing strategic management cases involves several steps. In this sec-tion we will review the mechanics of preparing a case analysis. Before beginning, thereare two things to keep in mind that will help make your understanding of the processmore clear and the results of the process more meaningful.

First, unless you prepare for a case discussion, there is little you can gain from thediscussion and even less that you can offer. Effective strategic managers don’t enter intoproblem-solving situations without doing some homework—investigating the situation,analyzing and researching possible solutions, and sometimes gathering the advice ofothers. Good problem solving often requires that decision makers be immersed in thefacts, options, and implications surrounding the problem. In case analysis, this meansreading and thoroughly comprehending the case materials before trying to make ananalysis.

The second point is related to the first. To get the most out of a case analysis youmust place yourself “inside” the case—that is, think like an actual participant in thecase situation. However, there are several positions you can take. These are discussedin the following paragraphs:

� Strategic decision maker. This is the position of the senior executive responsiblefor resolving the situation described in the case. It may be the CEO, the businessowner, or a strategic manager in a key executive position.

� Board of directors. Since the board of directors represents the owners of acorporation, it has a responsibility to step in when a management crisis threatensthe company. As a board member, you may be in a unique position to solveproblems.

� Outside consultant. Either the board or top management may decide to bring inoutsiders. Consultants often have an advantage because they can look at asituation objectively. But they may also be at a disadvantage since they have nopower to enforce changes.

Before beginning the analysis, it may be helpful to envision yourself assuming oneof these roles. Then, as you study and analyze the case materials, you can make a di-agnosis and recommend solutions in a way that is consistent with your position. Try dif-ferent perspectives. You may find that your view of the situation changes depending onthe role you play. As an outside consultant, for example, it may be easy for you to con-clude that certain individuals should be replaced in order to solve a problem presentedin the case. However, if you take the role of the CEO who knows the individuals and


the challenges they have been facing, you may be reluctant to fire them and will seekanother solution instead.

The idea of assuming a particular role is similar to the real world in various ways.In your career, you may work in an organization where outside accountants, bankers,lawyers, or other professionals are advising you about how to resolve business situa-tions or improve your practices. Their perspective will be different from yours but it isuseful to understand things from their point of view. Conversely, you may work as a

STRATEGY SPOTLIGHT 13.2 | USING A BUSINESS PLANFRAMEWORK TO ANALYZE STRATEGIC CASES

Established businesses often have to change what theyare doing in order to improve their competitive positionor sometimes simply to survive. To make the changes ef-fectively, businesses usually need a plan. Business plansare no longer just for entrepreneurs. The kind of marketanalysis, decision making, and action planning that isconsidered standard practice among new ventures canalso benefit going concerns that want to make changes,seize an opportunity, or head in a new direction.

The best business plans, however, are not thoseloaded with decades of month-by-month financial pro-jections or that depend on rigid adherence to a scheduleof events that is impossible to predict. The good onesare focused on four factors that are critical to new ven-ture success. These same factors are important in caseanalysis as well because they get to the heart of many ofthe problems found in strategic cases.

1. The People. “When I receive a business plan, I al-ways read the resume section first,” says HarvardProfessor William Sahlman. The people questionsthat are critically important to investors include:What are their skills? How much experience dothey have? What is their reputation? Have theyworked together as a team? These same questionsmay also be used in case analysis to evaluate therole of individuals in the strategic case.

2. The Opportunity. Business opportunities come inmany forms. They are not limited to new ventures.The chance to enter new markets, introduce newproducts, or merge with a competitor provide manyof the challenges that are found in strategic man-agement cases. What are the consequences of suchactions? Will the proposed changes affect the firm’sbusiness concept? What factors might stand in the

way of success? The same issues are also present inmost strategic cases.

3. The Context. Things happen in contexts that cannotbe controlled by a firm’s managers. This is particu-larly true of the general environment where socialtrends, economic changes, or events such as theSeptember 11, 2001, terrorist attacks can changebusiness overnight. When evaluating strategiccases, ask: Is the company aware of the impact ofcontext on the business? What will it do if the con-text changes? Can it influence the context in a waythat favors the company?

4. Risk and Reward. With a new venture, the entrepre-neurs and investors take the risks and get the re-wards. In strategic cases, the risks and rewards oftenextend to many other stakeholders—employees, cus-tomers, suppliers, and so on. When analyzing a case,ask: Are the managers making choices that will payoff in the future? Are the rewards evenly distributed?Will some stakeholders be put at risk if the situationin the case changes? What if the situation remainsthe same—could that be even more risky?

Whether a business is growing or shrinking, largeor small, industrial or service oriented, the issues ofpeople, opportunities, context, and risks and rewardswill have a large impact on its performance. Therefore,you should always consider these four factors whenevaluating strategic management cases.

Sources: C. A. DeKluyver, Strategic Thinking: An ExecutivePerspective (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000); F. L. Fryand C. R. Stoner, “Business Plans: Two Major Types,” Journal ofSmall Business Management, January 1985, pp. 1–6; W. A. Sahlman,“How to Write a Great Business Plan,” Harvard Business Review, 75,no. 4 (1997), pp. 98–108.

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member of the audit team of an accounting firm or the loan committee of a bank. Inthose situations, it would be helpful if you understood the situation from the perspec-tive of the business leader who must weigh your views against all the other advice thathe or she receives. Case analysis can help develop an ability to appreciate such multi-ple perspectives.

One of the most challenging roles to play in business is as a business founder orowner. For small businesses or entrepreneurial start-ups, the founder may wear all hatsat once—key decision maker, primary stockholder, and CEO. Hiring an outside con-sultant may not be an option. However, the issues faced by young firms and establishedfirms are often not that different, especially when it comes to formulating a plan of ac-tion. Business plans that entrepreneurial firms use to raise money or propose a businessexpansion typically revolve around a few key issues that must be addressed no matterwhat the size or age of the business. Strategy Spotlight 13.2 reviews business planningissues that are most important to consider when evaluating any case, especially from theperspective of the business founder or owner.

Next we will review five steps to follow when conducting a strategic managementcase analysis: becoming familiar with the material, identifying the problems, analyzingthe strategic issues using the tools and insights of strategic management, proposing al-ternative solutions, and making recommendations.4

Become Familiar with the Material

Written cases often include a lot of material. They may be complex and include detailedfinancials or long passages. Even so, to understand a case and its implications, you mustbecome familiar with its content. Sometimes key information is not immediately ap-parent. It may be contained in the footnotes to an exhibit or an interview with a lower-level employee. In other cases the important points may be difficult to grasp because thesubject matter is so unfamiliar. When you approach a strategic case try the followingtechnique to enhance comprehension:

� Read quickly through the case one time to get an overall sense of the material.� Use the initial read-through to assess possible links to strategic concepts.� Read through the case again, in depth. Make written notes as you read.� Evaluate how strategic concepts might inform key decisions or suggest alternative

solutions.� After formulating an initial recommendation, thumb through the case again

quickly to help assess the consequences of the actions you propose.

Identify Problems

When conducting case analysis, one of your most important tasks is to identify theproblem. Earlier we noted that one of the main reasons to conduct case analysis was tofind solutions. But you cannot find a solution unless you know the problem. Anothersaying you may have heard is, “A good diagnosis is half the cure.” In other words, onceyou have determined what the problem is, you are well on your way to identifying areasonable solution.


Some cases have more than one problem. But the problems are usually related. Fora hypothetical example, consider the following: Company A was losing customers to anew competitor. Upon analysis, it was determined that the competitor had a 50 percentfaster delivery time even though its product was of lower quality. The managers of com-pany A could not understand why customers would settle for an inferior product. Itturns out that no one was marketing to company A’s customers that its product was su-perior. A second problem was that falling sales resulted in cuts in company A’s salesforce. Thus, there were two related problems: inferior delivery technology and insuffi-cient sales effort.

When trying to determine the problem, avoid getting hung up on symptoms. Zeroin on the problem. For example, in the company A example above, the symptom waslosing customers. But the problems were an underfunded, understaffed sales force com-bined with an outdated delivery technology. Try to see beyond the immediate symptomsto the more fundamental problems.

Another tip when preparing a case analysis is to articulate the problem.5 Writingdown a problem statement gives you a reference point to turn to as you proceed throughthe case analysis. This is important because the process of formulating strategies orevaluating implementation methods may lead you away from the initial problem. Makesure your recommendation actually addresses the problems you have identified.

One more thing about identifying problems: Sometimes problems are not apparentuntil after you do the analysis. In some cases the problem will be presented plainly, per-haps in the opening paragraph or on the last page of the case. But in other cases theproblem does not emerge until after the issues in the case have been analyzed. We turnnext to the subject of strategic case analysis.

Conduct Strategic Analyses

This textbook has presented numerous analytical tools (e.g., five-forces analysis andvalue-chain analysis), contingency frameworks (e.g., when to use related rather thanunrelated diversification strategies), and other techniques that can be used to evaluatestrategic situations. The previous 12 chapters have addressed practices that are commonin strategic management, but only so much can be learned by studying the practices andconcepts. The best way to understand these methods is to apply them by conductinganalyses of specific cases.

The first step is to determine which strategic issues are involved. Is there a prob-lem in the company’s competitive environment? Or is it an internal problem? If it is in-ternal, does it have to do with organizational structure? strategic controls? uses of tech-nology? Or perhaps the company has overworked its employees or underutilized itsintellectual capital. Has the company mishandled a merger? Chosen the wrong diversi-fication strategy? Botched a new product introduction? Each of these issues is linked toone or more of the concepts discussed earlier in the text. Determine what strategic is-sues are associated with the problems you have identified. Remember also that mostreal-life case situations involve issues that are highly interrelated. Even in cases wherethere is only one major problem, the strategic processes required to solve it may involveseveral parts of the organization.


Once you have identified the issues that apply to the case, conduct the analysis. Forexample, you may need to conduct a five-forces analysis or dissect the company’s com-petitive strategy. Perhaps you need to evaluate whether its resources are rare, valuable,difficult to imitate, or difficult to substitute. Financial analysis may be needed to assessthe company’s economic prospects. Perhaps the international entry mode needs to bereevaluated because of changing conditions in the host country. Employee empower-ment techniques may need to be improved to enhance organizational learning. What-ever the case, all the strategic concepts introduced in the text include insights for as-sessing their effectiveness. Determining how well a company is doing these things iscentral to the case analysis process.

In this part of the overall strategic analysis process, it is also important to test yourown assumptions about the case.6 First, what assumptions are you making about thecase materials? It may be that you have interpreted the case content differently thanyour team members or classmates. Being clear about these assumptions will be impor-tant in determining how to analyze the case. Second, what assumptions have you madeabout the best way to resolve the problems? Ask yourself why you have chosen one typeof analysis over another. This process of assumption checking can also help determineif you have gotten to the heart of the problem or are still just dealing with symptoms.

As mentioned earlier, sometimes the critical diagnosis in a case can only be madeafter the analysis is conducted. However, by the end of this stage in the process, youshould know the problems and have completed a thorough analysis of them. You cannow move to the next step: finding solutions.

Propose Alternative Solutions

It is important to remember that in strategic management case analysis, there is rarelyone right answer or one best way. Even when members of a class or a team agree onwhat the problem is, you may not agree upon how to solve the problem. Therefore, it ishelpful to consider several different solutions.

After conducting strategic analysis and identifying the problem, develop a list ofoptions. What are the possible solutions? What are the alternatives? Generate a list first,listing all of the options you can think of without prejudging any one of them. Remember that not all cases call for dramatic decisions or sweeping changes. Somecompanies just need to make small adjustments. In fact, “Do nothing” may be a rea-sonable alternative in some cases. Although that is rare, it might be useful to considerwhat will happen if the company does nothing. This point illustrates the purpose of developing alternatives: to evaluate what will happen if a company chooses one solu-tion over another.

Thus, during this step of a case analysis, you will evaluate choices and the impli-cations of those choices. One aspect of any business that is likely to be highlighted inthis part of the analysis is strategy implementation. Ask how the choices made will beimplemented. It may be that what seems like an obvious choice for solving a problemcreates an even bigger problem when implemented. But remember also that no strategyor strategic “fix” is going to work if it cannot be implemented. Once a list of alterna-tives is generated, ask:


� Can the company afford it? How will it affect the bottom line?� Is the solution likely to evoke a competitive response?� Will employees throughout the company accept the changes? What impact will

the solution have on morale?� How will the decision affect other stakeholders? Will customers, suppliers, and

others buy into it?� How does this solution fit with the company’s vison, mission, and objectives?� Will the culture or values of the company be changed by the solution? Is it a

positive change?

The point of this step in the case analysis process is to find a solution that bothsolves the problem and is realistic. A consideration of the implications of various alter-native solutions will generally lead you to a final recommendation that is more thought-ful and complete.

Make Recommendations

The basic aim of case analysis is to find solutions. Your analysis is not complete until youhave recommended a course of action. In this step the task is to make a set of recommen-dations that your analysis supports. Describe exactly what needs to be done. Explain whythis course of action will solve the problem. The recommendation should also include sug-gestions for how best to implement the proposed solution because the recommended ac-tions and their implications for the performance and future of the firm are interrelated.

Recall that the solution you propose must solve the problem you identified. Thispoint cannot be overemphasized; too often students make recommendations that treatonly symptoms or fail to tackle the central problems in the case. Make a logical argu-ment that shows how the problem led to the analysis and the analysis led to the recom-mendations you are proposing. Remember, an analysis is not an end in itself; it is use-ful only if it leads to a solution.

The actions you propose should describe the very next steps that the companyneeds to take. Don’t say, for example, “If the company does more market research, thenI would recommend the following course of action . . .” Instead, make conducting theresearch part of your recommendation. Taking the example a step further, if you alsowant to suggest subsequent actions that may be different depending on the outcome ofthe market research, that’s OK. But don’t make your initial recommendation condi-tional on actions the company may or may not take.

In summary, case analysis can be a very rewarding process but, as you might imag-ine, it can also be frustrating and challenging. If you will follow the steps describedabove, you will address the different elements of a thorough analysis. This approach cangive your analysis a solid footing. Then, even if there are differences of opinion abouthow to interpret the facts, analyze the situation, or solve the problems, you can feel con-fident that you have not missed any important steps in finding the best course of action.

Students are often asked to prepare oral presentations of the information in a caseand their analysis of the best remedies. This is frequently assigned as a group project.Or you may be called upon in class to present your ideas about the circumstances or so-lutions for a case the class is discussing. Exhibit 13.1 provides some tips for preparingan oral case presentation.



Exhibit 13.1 Preparing an Oral Case Presentation

Rule Description

Organize your thoughts. Begin by becoming familiar with the material. If you are working with a team,compare notes about the key points of the case and share insights that otherteam members may have gleaned from tables and exhibits. Then make anoutline. This is one of the best ways to organize the flow and content of thepresentation.

Emphasize strategic analysis. The purpose of case analysis is to diagnose problems and find solutions. In the process, you may need to unravel the case material as presented andreconfigure it in a fashion that can be more effectively analyzed. Present thematerial in a way that lends itself to analysis—don’t simply restate what is inthe case. This involves three major categories with the following emphasis:

Background/Problem Statement 10–20%Strategic Analysis/Options 60–75%Recommendations/Action Plan 10–20%

As you can see, the emphasis of your presentation should be on analysis. Thiswill probably require you to reorganize the material so that the tools ofstrategic analysis can be applied.

Be logical and consistent. A presentation that is rambling and hard to follow may confuse the listener andfail to evoke a good discussion. Present your arguments and explanations in alogical sequence. Support your claims with facts. Include financial analysiswhere appropriate. Be sure that the solutions you recommend address theproblems you have identified.

Defend your position. Usually an oral presentation is followed by a class discussion. Anticipate what others might disagree with and be prepared to defend your views. Thismeans being aware of the choices you made and the implications of yourrecommendations. Be clear about your assumptions. Be able to expand on your analysis.

Share presentation responsibilities. Strategic management case analyses are often conducted by teams. Eachmember of the team should have a clear role in the oral presentation,preferably a speaking role. It’s also important to coordinate the different partsof the presentation into a logical, smooth-flowing whole. How well a teamworks together is usually very apparent during an oral presentation.

HOW TO GET THE MOST FROM CASE ANALYSISOne of the reasons case analysis is so enriching as a learning tool is that it draws onmany resources and skills besides just what is in the textbook. This is especially true inthe study of strategy. Why? Because strategic management itself is a highly integrativetask that draws on many areas of specialization at several levels, from the individual tothe whole of society. Therefore, to get the most out of case analysis, expand your hori-zons beyond the concepts in this text and seek insights from your own reservoir ofknowledge. Here are some tips for how to do that.7

� Keep an open mind. Like any good discussion, a case analysis discussion oftenevokes strong opinions and high emotions. But it’s the variety of perspectives thatmakes case analysis so valuable: Many viewpoints usually lead to a more

complete analysis. Therefore, avoid letting an emotional response to anotherperson’s style or opinion keep you from hearing what he or she has to say. Onceyou evaluate what is said, you may disagree with it or dismiss it as faulty. Butunless you keep an open mind in the first place, you may miss the importance ofthe other person’s contribution. Also, people often place a higher value on theopinions of those they consider to be good listeners.

� Take a stand for what you believe. Although it is vital to keep an open mind, it isalso important to state your views proactively. Don’t try to figure out what yourfriends or the instructor wants to hear. Analyze the case from the perspective ofyour own background and belief system. For example, perhaps you feel that adecision is unethical or that the managers in a case have misinterpreted the facts.Don’t be afraid to assert that in the discussion. For one thing, when a persontakes a strong stand, it often encourages others to evaluate the issues moreclosely. This can lead to a more thorough investigation and a more meaningfulclass discussion.

� Draw on your personal experience. You may have experiences from work or as acustomer that shed light on some of the issues in a case. Even though one of thepurposes of case analysis is to apply the analytical tools from this text, you maybe able to add to the discussion by drawing on your outside experiences andbackground. Of course, you need to guard against carrying that to extremes. Inother words, don’t think that your perspective is the only viewpoint that matters!Simply recognize that firsthand experience usually represents a welcomecontribution to the overall quality of case discussions.

� Participate and persuade. Have you heard the phrase, “Vote early . . . and often”?Among loyal members of certain political parties, it has become rather a joke.Why? Because a democratic system is built on the concept of one person, onevote. Even though some voters may want to vote often enough to get theircandidate elected, it is against the law. Not so in a case discussion. People whoare persuasive and speak their mind can often influence the views of others. Butto do so, you have to be prepared and convincing. Being persuasive is more thanbeing loud or long-winded. It involves understanding all sides of an argumentand being able to overcome objections to your own point of view. These effortscan make a case discussion more lively. And they parallel what happens in thereal world; in business, people frequently share their opinions and attempt topersuade others to see things their way.

� Be concise and to the point. In the previous point, we encouraged you to speakup and “sell” your ideas to others in a case discussion. But you must be clearabout what you are selling. Make your arguments in a way that is explicit anddirect. Zero in on the most important points. Be brief. Don’t try to make a lot ofpoints at once by jumping around between topics. Avoid trying to explain thewhole case situation at once. Remember, other students usually resent classmateswho go on and on, take up a lot of “airtime,” or repeat themselves unnecessarily.The best way to avoid this is to stay focused and be specific.

� Think out of the box. It’s OK to be a little provocative; sometimes that is theconsequence of taking a stand on issues. But it may be equally important to be


imaginative and creative when making a recommendation or determining how toimplement a solution. Albert Einstein once stated, “Imagination is more importantthan knowledge.” The reason is that managing strategically requires more thanmemorizing concepts. Strategic management insights must be applied to each casedifferently—just knowing the principles is not enough. Imagination and out-of-the-box thinking helps to apply strategic knowledge in novel and unique ways.

� Learn from the insights of others. Before you make up your mind about a case,hear what other students have to say. Get a second opinion, and a third, and soforth. In a situation where you have to put your analysis in writing, of course,you may not be able to learn from others ahead of time. But in a case discussion,observe how various students attack the issues and engage in problem solving.Such observation skills may also be a key to finding answers within the case. Forexample, people tend to believe authority figures, so they would place a highervalue on what a company president says. In some cases, however, the statementsof middle managers may represent a point of view that is even more helpful forfinding a solution to the problems presented by the case.

� Apply insights from other case analyses. Throughout the text, we have usedexamples of actual businesses to illustrate strategy concepts. The aim has been toshow you how firms think about and deal with business problems. During thecourse, you may be asked to conduct several case analyses as part of the learningexperience. Once you have performed a few case analyses, you will see how theconcepts from the text apply in real-life business situations. Incorporate theinsights learned from the text examples and your own previous case discussionsinto each new case that you analyze.

� Critically analyze your own performance. Performance appraisals are a standardpart of many workplace situations. They are used to determine promotions,raises, and work assignments. In some organizations, everyone from the topexecutive down is subject to such reviews. Even in situations where the owner orCEO is not evaluated by others, they often find it useful to ask themselvesregularly, Am I being effective? The same can be applied to your performance ina case analysis situation. Ask yourself, Were my comments insightful? Did Imake a good contribution? How might I improve next time? Use the same criteriaon yourself that you use to evaluate others. What grade would you give yourself?This technique will not only make you more fair in your assessment of others,but also indicate how your own performance can improve.

� Conduct outside research. Many times, you can enhance your understanding of acase situation by investigating sources outside the case materials. For example,you may want to study an industry more closely or research a company’s closecompetitors. Recent moves such as mergers and acquisitions or productintroductions may be reported in the business press. The company itself mayprovide useful information on its website or in its annual reports. Suchinformation can usually spur additional discussion and enrich the case analysis.(Caution: It is best to check with your instructor in advance to be sure this kindof additional research is encouraged. Bringing in outside research may conflictwith the instructor’s learning objectives.)


Exhibit 13.2 Preparing a Written Case Analysis

Rule Descripton

Be thorough. Many of the ideas presented in Exhibit 13.1 about oral presentations also apply to written case analysis. However, a written analysis typically has to be morecomplete. This means writing out the problem statement and articulatingassumptions. It is also important to provide support for your arguments andreference case materials or other facts more specifically.

Coordinate team efforts. Written cases are often prepared by small groups. Within a group, just as in aclass discussion, you may disagree about the diagnosis or the recommended planof action. This can be healthy if it leads to a richer understanding of the casematerial. But before committing your ideas to writing, make sure you havecoordinated your responses. Don’t prepare a written analysis that appearscontradictory or looks like a patchwork of disconnected thoughts.

Avoid restating the obvious. There is no reason to restate material that everyone is familiar with already,namely, the case content. It is too easy for students to use up space in a writtenanalysis with a recapitulation of the details of the case—this accomplishes verylittle. Stay focused on the key points. Only restate the information that is mostcentral to your analysis.

Present information graphically. Tables, graphs, and other exhibits are usually one of the best ways to presentfactual material that supports your arguments. For example, financial calculationssuch as break-even analysis, sensitivity analysis, or return on investment are bestpresented graphically. Even qualitative information such as product lists or rostersof employees can be summarized effectively and viewed quickly by using a tableor graph.

Exercise quality control. When presenting a case analysis in writing, it is especially important to use goodgrammar, avoid misspelling words, and eliminate typos and other visualdistractions. Mistakes that can be glossed over in an oral presentation or classdiscussion are often highlighted when they appear in writing. Make your writtenpresentation appear as professional as possible. Don’t let the appearance of yourwritten case keep the reader from recognizing the importance and quality of youranalysis.

Several of the points suggested above for how to get the most out of case analysisapply only to an open discussion of a case, like that in a classroom setting. Exhibit 13.2provides some additional guidelines for preparing a written case analysis.

FOLLOWING THE ANALYSIS-DECISION-ACTIONCYCLE IN CASE ANALYSISIn Chapter 1 we defined strategic management as the analysis, decisions, and actionsthat organizations undertake to create and sustain competitive advantages. It is no acci-dent that we chose that sequence of words because it corresponds to the sequence ofevents that typically occurs in the strategic management process. In case analysis, as inthe real world, this cycle of events can provide a useful framework. First, an analysis ofthe case in terms of the business environment and current events is needed. To makesuch an analysis, the case background must be considered. Next, based on that analy-sis, decisions must be made. This may involve formulating a strategy, choosing between


difficult options, moving forward aggressively, or retreating from a bad situation. Thereare many possible decisions, depending on the case situation. Finally, action is required.Once decisions are made and plans are set, the action begins. The recommended actionsteps and the consequences of implementing these actions are the final stage.

Each of the previous 12 chapters of this book includes techniques and informationthat may be useful in a case analysis. However, not all of the issues presented will beimportant in every case. As noted earlier, one of the challenges of case analysis is toidentify the most critical points and sort through material that may be ambiguous orunimportant.

In this section we draw on the material presented in each of the 12 chapters to showhow it informs the case analysis process. The ideas are linked sequentially and in termsof an overarching strategic perspective. One of your jobs when conducting case analy-sis is to see how the parts of a case fit together and how the insights from the study ofstrategy can help you understand the case situation.

1. Analyzing organizational goals and objectives. A company’s vision, mission, andobjectives keep organization members focused on a common purpose. They also influ-ence how an organization deploys its resources, relates to its stakeholders, and matchesits short-term objectives with its long-term goals. The goals may even impact how acompany formulates and implements strategies. When exploring issues of goals and ob-jective, you may need to ask:� Has the company developed short-term objectives that are inconsistent with its

long-term mission? If so, how can management realign its vision, mission, andobjectives?

� Has the company considered all of its stakeholders equally in making criticaldecisions? If not, should the views of all stakeholders be treated the same or aresome stakeholders more important than others?

� Is the company being faced with an issue that conflicts with one of its long-standing policies? If so, how should it compare its existing policies to thepotential new situation?

2. Analyzing the external environment. The business environment has two compo-nents. The general environment consists of demographic, sociocultural, political/legal,technological, economic, and global conditions. The competitive environment includesrivals, suppliers, customers, and other factors that may directly affect a company’s suc-cess. Strategic managers must monitor the environment to identify opportunities andthreats that may have an impact on performance. When investigating a firm’s externalenvironment, you may need to ask:� Does the company follow trends and events in the general environment? If not,

how can these influences be made part of the company’s strategic analysisprocess?

� Is the company effectively scanning and monitoring the competitiveenvironment? If so, how is it using the competitive intelligence it is gathering toenhance its competitive advantage?

� Has the company correctly analyzed the impact of the competitive forces in itsindustry on profitability? If so, how can it improve its competitive positionrelative to these forces?


3. Analyzing the internal environment. A firm’s internal environment consists of its re-sources and other value-adding capabilities. Value-chain analysis and a resource-basedapproach to analysis can be used to identify a company’s strengths and weaknesses anddetermine how they are contributing to its competitive advantages. Evaluating firm per-formance can also help make meaningful comparisons with competitors. When re-searching a company’s internal analysis, you may need to ask:� Does the company know how the various components of its value chain are

adding value to the firm? If not, what internal analysis is needed to determine itsstrengths and weakness?

� Has the company accurately analyzed the source and vitality of its resources? Ifso, is it deploying its resources in a way that contributes to competitiveadvantages?

� Is the company’s financial performance as good as or better than that of its closecompetitors? If so, has it balanced its financial success with the performancecriteria of other stakeholders such as customers and employees?

4. Assessing a firm’s intellectual assets. Human capital is a major resource in today’sknowledge economy. As a result, attracting, developing, and retaining talented workersis a key strategic challenge. Other assets such as patents and trademarks are also criti-cal. How companies leverage their intellectual assets through social networks andstrategic alliances, and how technology is used to manage knowledge may be a majorinfluence on a firm’s competitive advantage. When analyzing a firm’s intellectual assets,you may need to ask:� Does the company have underutilized human capital? If so, what steps are needed

to develop and leverage its intellectual assets?� Is the company missing opportunities to forge strategic alliances? If so, how can

it use its social capital to network more effectively?� Has the company developed knowledge-management systems that capture what it

learns? If not, what technologies can it employ to retain new knowledge?

5. Formulating business-level strategies. Firms use the competitive strategies of dif-ferentiation, focus, and overall cost leadership as a basis for overcoming the five com-petitive forces and developing sustainable competitive advantages. Combinations ofthese strategies may work best in some competitive environments. Additionally, an in-dustry’s life cycle is an important contingency that may affect a company’s choice ofbusiness-level strategies. When assessing business-level strategies, you might ask:� Has the company chosen the correct competitive strategy given its industry

environment and competitive situation? If not, how should it use its strengths andresources to improve its performance?

� Does the company use combination strategies effectively? If so, what capabilitiescan it cultivate to further enhance profitability?

� Is the company using a strategy that is appropriate for the industry life cycle inwhich it is competing? If not, how can it realign itself to match its efforts to thecurrent stage of industry growth?

6. Formulating corporate-level strategies. Large firms often own and manage portfoliosof businesses. Corporate strategies address methods for achieving synergies among these


businesses. Related and unrelated diversification techniques are alternative approaches todeciding which business should be added to or removed from a portfolio. Companies candiversify by means of mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, strategic alliances, and inter-nal development. When analyzing corporate-level strategies, you might ask:� Is the company competing in the right businesses given the opportunities and

threats that are present in the environment? If not, how can it realign itsdiversification strategy to achieve competitive advantages?

� Is the corporation managing its portfolio of businesses in a way that createssynergies among the businesses? If so, what additional business should itconsider adding to its portfolio?

� Are the motives of the top corporate executives who are pushing diversificationstrategies appropriate? If not, what action can be taken to curb their activities oralign them with the best interests of all stakeholders?

7. Formulating international-level strategies. Foreign markets provide both opportu-nities and potential dangers for companies that want to expand globally. To decidewhich entry strategy is most appropriate, companies have to evaluate the trade-offs be-tween two factors that firms face when entering foreign markets: cost reduction andlocal adaptation. To achieve competitive advantages, firms will typically choose one ofthree strategies: global, multidomestic, or transnational. When evaluating international-level strategies, you might ask:� Is the company’s entry into an international marketplace threatened by the actions

of local competitors? If so, how can cultural differences be minimized to give thefirm a better chance of succeeding?

� Has the company made the appropriate choices between cost reduction and localadaptation to foreign markets? If not, how can it adjust its strategy to achievecompetitive advantages?

� Can the company improve its effectiveness by embracing one internationalstrategy over another? If so, how should it choose between a global,multidomestic, or transnational strategy?

8. Formulating Internet strategies. The Internet has created a new arena for strategicanalysis, decisions, and action. The technologies and applications that the Internetmakes possible is having an impact on competitive forces in many industries. Internetstrategies that combine elements of low cost, differentiation, and focus are creating newwealth in this New Economy. When conducting an analysis that involves Internet strate-gies, you might ask:� Has the company correctly assessed shifts in the five competitive forces that have

been brought about by the Internet? If so, what new strategies should it formulateto take advantage of—or defend itself—in the New Economy?

� Does the company have an opportunity to lower its transaction costs by doingbusiness over the Internet? If so, what supply-chain or distribution channelrelationships might be disrupted?

� Is the company using the right mix of competitive strategies to make the most ofInternet-based technologies? If not, how might it deploy its resources andcapabilities differently?


9. Achieving effective strategic control. Strategic controls enable a firm to implementstrategies effectively. Informational controls involve comparing performance to statedgoals and scanning, monitoring, and being responsive to the environment. Behavioralcontrols emerge from a company’s culture, reward systems, and organizational bound-aries. When assessing the impact of strategic controls on implementation, consider asking:� Is the company employing the appropriate informational control systems? If not,

how can it implement a more interactive approach to enhance learning andminimize response times?

� Does the company have a strong and effective culture? If not, what steps can ittake to align its values and rewards system with its goals and objectives?

� Has the company implemented control systems that match its strategies? If so,what additional steps can be taken to improve performance?

10. Creating effective organization designs. Organizational designs that align withcompetitive strategies can enhance performance. As companies grow and change, theirstructures must also evolve to meet new demands. In today’s economy, firm boundariesmust be flexible and permeable to facilitate smoother interactions with external partiessuch as customers, suppliers, and alliance partners. New forms of organizing are be-coming more common. When evaluating the role of organizational structure on strategyimplementation, consider asking:� Has the company implemented organizational structures that are suited to the

type of business it is in? If not, how can it alter the design in ways that enhanceits competitiveness?

� Is the company employing boundaryless organizational designs whereappropriate? If so, how are senior managers maintaining control of lower-levelemployees?

� Does the company use outsourcing to achieve the best possible results? If not,what criteria should it use to decide which functions can be outsourced?

11. Creating a learning organization and an ethical organization. Strong leadershipis essential for achieving competitive advantages. Two leadership roles are especiallyimportant. The first is creating a learning organization by harnessing talent and encour-aging the development of new knowledge. Second, leaders play a vital role in motivat-ing employees to excellence and inspiring ethical behavior. When exploring the impactof effective strategic leadership, consider asking:� Do company leaders promote excellence as part of the overall culture? If so, how

has this influenced the performance of the firm and the individuals in it?� Is the company committed to being a learning organization? If not, what can it do

to capitalize on the individual and collective talents of organization members?� Have company leaders exhibited an ethical attitude in their own behavior? If not,

how has their behavior influenced the actions of other employees?

12. Fostering corporate entrepreneurship and new venture creation. Many firms con-tinually seek new growth opportunities and avenues for strategic renewal. In corporatesettings, the autonomous actions of product champions and other firm members providecompanies with the impetus to expand into new areas. Young and small businesses also


recognize opportunities and launch ventures that add jobs, create new wealth, and gen-erate new strategic leaders. When investigating the impact of entrepreneurship onstrategic effectiveness, consider asking:� Is the company engaged in an ongoing process of opportunity recognition? If not,

how can it enhance its ability to identify new business opportunities?� Has the company developed autonomous work units that have the freedom to

bring forth new product ideas? If so, has it used product champions to implementnew venture initiatives?

� Does the company have an entrepreneurial orientation? If not, what can it do toencourage entrepreneurial attitudes in the strategic behavior of its organizationalmembers?

SUMMARYStrategic management case analysis provides an effective method of learning how com-panies analyze problems, make decisions, and resolve challenges. Strategic cases in-clude detailed accounts of actual business situations. The purpose of analyzing suchcases is to gain exposure to a wide variety of organizational and managerial situations.By putting yourself in the place of a strategic decision maker, you can gain an appreci-ation for the difficulty and complexity of many strategic situations. In the process youcan learn how to ask good strategic questions and enhance your analytical skills. Pre-senting case analyses can also help develop oral and written communication skills.

In this chapter we have discussed the importance of strategic case analysis and de-scribed the five steps involved in conducting a case analysis: becoming familiar with thematerial, identifying problems, analyzing strategic issues, proposing alternative solu-tions, and making recommendations. We have also discussed how to get the most fromcases analysis. Finally, we have described how the case analysis process follows theanalysis-decision-action cycle of strategic management and outlined issues and ques-tions that are associated with each of the previous 12 chapters of the text.

REFERENCES1. The material in this chapter is based on several sources, including Barnes, L. A., Nelson,

A. J. & Christensen, C. R. 1994. Teaching and the case method: Text, cases and readings.Boston: Harvard Business School Press; Guth, W. D. 1985. Central concepts of businessunit and corporate strategy. In W. D. Guth, ed. Handbook of business strategy. Boston:Warren, Gorham & Lamont 1–9; Lundberg, C. C. & Enz, C. 1993. A framework forstudent case preparation. Case Research Journal, 13 (Summer): 129–140; and Ronstadt,R. 1980. The art of case analysis: A guide to the diagnosis of business situations. Dover,MA: Lord Publishing.

2. Edge, A. G. & Coleman, D. R. 1986. The guide to case analysis and reporting, 3rd ed.Honolulu, HI: System Logistics.

3. Morris, E. 1987. Vision and strategy: A focus for the future. Journal of Business Strategy,8:51–58.

4. This section is based on Lundberg & Enz, op. cit.; and Ronstadt, op. cit.


5. The importance of problem definition was emphasized in Mintzberg, H., Raisinghani, D.& Theoret, A. 1976. The structure of “unstructured” decision processes. AdministrativeScience Quarterly, 21(2):246–75.

6. Drucker, P. F. 1994. The theory of the business. Harvard Business Review, 72(5):95–104.

7. This section draws on Edge & Coleman, op. cit.

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER 13:SOURCES OF COMPANY AND INDUSTRY INFORMATION*In order for business executives to make the best decisions when developing strategy, itis critical for them to be knowledgeable about their competitors and about the industriesin which they compete. This appendix provides an overview of important sources of in-formation that may be useful in conducting company and industry analysis. Much in-formation of this nature is available in libraries in article databases, business referencebooks, and on websites. This list will recommend a variety of them. Ask a librarian forassistance because library collections and resources vary.

The information sources are organized into 10 categories: Competitive Intelli-gence; Public or Private, Subsidiary or Division, U.S. or Foreign?; Annual Report Col-lections—Public Companies; Guides and Tutorials; SEC Filings/EDGAR—CompanyDisclosure Reports; Company Rankings; Business Metasites and Portals; Strategic andCompetitive Analysis—Information Sources; Sources for Industry Research and Analy-sis; and Search Engines.

Competitive Intelligence

Students and other researchers who want to learn more about the value and process ofcompetitive intelligence should see three recent books on this subject.

Managing Frontiers in Competitive Intelligence. Craig S. Fleisher and David L.Blenkhorn, eds. Westport, CT: Quorum Books, 2001.

Jerry Miller and the Business Intelligence Braintrust. Millenium Intelligence: Under-standing and Conducting Competitive Intelligence in the Digital Age. Medford, NJ: In-formation Today/CyberAge Books, 2000.

Helen P. Burwell. Online Competitive Intelligence: Increase Your Profits Using Cyber-Intelligence. Tempe, AZ: Facts on Demand Press, 1999.

Public or Private, Subsidiary or Division, U.S. or Foreign?

Companies traded on stock exchanges in the United States are required to file a variety ofreports that disclose information about the company. This begins the process that pro-duces a wealth of data on public companies and at the same time distinguishes them fromprivate companies which often lack available data. Similarly, financial data of subsidiaries


* This information was compiled by Ruthie Brock and Carol Byrne, Business Librarians at the Universityof Texas at Arlington. We greatly appreciate their valuable contribution.

and divisions are typically filed in a consolidated financial statement by the parent com-pany, rather than treated independently, thus limiting the kind of data available on them.On the other hand, foreign companies that trade on U.S. stock exchanges are required tofile 20F reports, similar to the 10-K for U.S. companies, the most comprehensive of therequired reports, although the number of foreign companies doing so is relatively small.

Corporate Directory of U.S. Public Companies. San Mateo, CA: Walker’s Research,LLC, 2001. The Corporate Directory provides company profiles of more than 11,000publicly traded companies in the United States, including 1,200 foreign companiestrading on U.S. exchanges (American depositary receipts, or ADRs).

Directory of Corporate Affiliations. New Providence, NJ: National Register Publishing,A Lexis-Nexis Group Company, 2001 edition. This directory features brief profilesidentifying major U.S. and foreign corporations, both public and private, as well as theirsubsidiaries, divisions, and affiliates. The directory also indicates hierarchies of corpo-rate affiliation for each firm.

Ward’s Directory of Public and Private Companies. Detroit, MI: Gale Group, 2001. 8 vols. This directory lists brief profiles on more than 110,000 public and private com-panies and indicates whether they are public or private, a subsidiary or a division.

Annual Report Collections—Public Companies

A growing number of companies have their annual report to shareholders and other fi-nancial reports available on corporate websites. A few “aggregators” have cumulatedlinks to many of these websites for both U.S. and international corporations.

Annual Report Gallery. This website contains over 2,200 annual reports (in HTML orPDF format) with additional links to company websites. http://www.reportgallery.com

Company Annual Reports Online (CAROL). This website is based in the United King-dom; therefore, many reports are European. Links are also provided for companies inAsia and the United States. A pull-down menu allows users to select companies withinan industry. http://www.carol.co.uk/

Public Register’s Online Annual Report Service. Visitors to this website may choosefrom more than 2,000 company annual reports to view online or order a paper copy.http://www.annualreportservice.com/

Guides and Tutorials

Guide to Corporate Filings and Forms. This part of the Securities Exchange Commis-sion’s website explains and defines a 10-K and other SEC-required reports that corpo-rations must file. http://www.sec.gov/edaux/forms.htm

Guide to Understanding Financials. This guide gives basic information on how to readthe financial statements in a company’s annual report. http://www.ibm.com/investor/financialguide/

Researching Companies Online. This site provides a step-by-step process for findingfree company and industry information on the Web. http://home.sprintmail.com/~debflanagan/index.html


SEC Filings/EDGAR—Company Disclosure Reports

SEC Filings are the various reports that publicly traded companies must file with theSecurities Exchange Commission to disclose information about themselves. These areoften referred to as “EDGAR” filings, the acronym for the Electronic Data Gathering,Analysis and Retrieval System. Some websites and commercial databases improve ac-cess to these reports by offering additional retrieval features not available on the offi-cial (www.sec.gov) website.

Academic Universe—SEC Filings and Reports. Lexis-Nexis. EDGAR filings and re-ports are available through the “Business” option of Academic Universe. These reportsand filings can be retrieved by company name, industry code (Standard Industrial Clas-sification, or SIC) or ticker symbol for a particular time period or by a specific report.Proxy, prospectus, and registration filings are also available.

Factiva/Dow Jones Interactive—SEC Full-Text Filings. Dow Jones Reuters BusinessInteractive, LLC. “SEC Full-Text Filings” are available in the “Company and IndustryCenter” on the Factiva/Dow Jones Interactive home page and are searchable by com-pany name or ticker symbol, as well as words or phrases.

EDGAR Database—Securities Exchange Commission. The 10-K reports and other cor-porate documents are made available in the EDGAR database within 24 hours afterbeing filed. Annual Reports, on the other hand, are sent to shareholders and are not re-quired as part of EDGAR by the SEC although some companies voluntarily providethem. Both 10-Ks and shareholders’ annual reports are considered basic sources ofcompany research. http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml

EdgarScan—an Intelligent Interface to the SEC EDGAR Database. Pricewaterhouse-Coopers. Using filings from the SEC’s servers, EdgarScan’s intelligent interface parsesthe data automatically to a common format that is comparable across companies. Asmall Java applet called the “Benchmarking Assistant” performs graphical financialbenchmarking interactively. Extracted financial data from the 10-K includes ratios withlinks to indicate where the data was derived and how it was computed. Tables showingcompany comparisons can be downloaded as Excel charts. http://www.edgarscan.com/

FISonline—EDGAR. Mergent, Inc. (formerly Moody’s). Within FISonline, EDGAR fil-ings and reports can be searched by company name or ticker symbol, filing date rangeand file type (e.g., 10-K, 8-K, ARS) from the “Search EDGAR” page. The reports areavailable in HTML or MS word format. Using the “Find in Page” option from thebrowser provides the capability of jumping to specific sections of an SEC report.

FreeEDGAR. EDGAR Online, Inc. Norwalk, CT. This website offers free access tobasic SEC filings with a table of contents for easy access. Premium features such asWatchlist Alerting, Rich Text Format (RTF), Excel Downloading, and Full Text Searchare now available only to subscribers of EDGAR Online, the parent company ofFreeEDGAR. http://www.FreeEDGAR.com/

Hoover’s Online—Real-Time SEC filings. Austin, TX. Hoover’s Inc. Use the searchmenu for SEC Filings on Hoover’s home page. Hoover’s provides access to Real-TimeSEC filings through the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s retrieval system.The results are limited to the latest 100 documents filed for the preceding 12 months.http://www.hoovers.com/


Company Rankings

Fortune 500. The Fortune 500 list and other company rankings are available at the For-tune magazine website. http://www.fortune.com/fortune/fortune500/perform.html

Global 500. The Global 500 list and other company rankings are available at the For-tune magazine website. http://www.fortune.com/fortune/global500/

Ward’s Directory of Public and Private Companies. Detroit, MI, Gale Group, 2001. 8 vols. Ward’s Business Directory is one of the few directories to rank both public andprivate companies together by sales within an industry, using both the Standard Indus-trial Classification (SIC) system (in volume 5 only) and the North American IndustryClassification system (in volume 8 only). With this information, it is easy to spot whothe big “players” are in a particular product or industry category. Market share withinan industry group can be calculated by determining a company’s percentage of salesfrom the total given by Ward’s for that industry group.

Web 100: Big Business on the Web. This website lists the largest 100 corporations onthe Web. http://metamoney.com/w100/

Business Metasites and Portals

@Brint.com, The Biz Tech Network. Brint Institute, Syracuse, NY. Brint’s business met-asite has a concentration of Web links related to e-business, knowledge management,and technology. http://www.brint.com/

CI—CorporateInformation. Winthrop Corporation, Milford, CT. CorporateInforma-tion’s website includes information on public and private companies, both in the UnitedStates and worldwide. It also provides access to company profiles and research reportsalphabetically, geographically by specific countries or U.S. states, and by industry sec-tor. Each interactive research report analyzes sales, dividends, earnings, profit ratios, re-search and development, and inventory, and allows up to three companies to be com-pared to the company selected. http://www.corporateinformation.com/

Hoover’s Online. Austin, TX, Hoover’s Inc. Hoover’s Online includes capsules of over50,000 companies with links to corporate websites. Some information is free and someis available only to member subscribers. (The key symbol indicates members only.)http://www.hoovers.com/

Strategic and Competitive Analysis—Information Sources

Analyzing a company can take the form of examining its internal and external environ-ment. In the process, it is useful to identify the company’s strengths, weaknesses,opportunities, and threats (SWOT). Sources for this kind of analysis are varied, but perhaps the best would be to locate articles from the The Wall Street Journal, businessmagazines, and industry trade publications. Publications such as these can be found in the following databases available at many public and academic libraries. When using a database that is structured to allow it, try searching the company name com-bined with one or more key words, such as “IBM and competition” or “Microsoft and courts” or “AMR and acquisition” to retrieve articles relating to the external environment.


ABI/ Inform. ProQuest Information & Learning. Ann Arbor, MI. ABI/Inform provides ab-stracts and full-text articles covering management, law, taxation, human resources, andcompany and industry information from more than 1,000 business and management jour-nals. ABI/Inform includes market condition reports, case studies, and executive profiles.

Academic Universe. Lexis-Nexis. Bethesda, MD. The Academic Universe “Business”category provides access to a wide range of business information. Timely business articles can be retrieved from newspapers, magazines, journals, wires, and broadcasttranscripts. Other information available in this section includes detailed company financials, company comparisons, and industry and market information for over 25 industries.

Business & Company Resource Center. Detroit, MI: Gale Group. Business & CompanyResource Center provides company and industry intelligence for a selection of publicand private companies. Company profiles include parent-sibling relationships, industryrankings, products and brands, current investment ratings, and financial ratios. Use thegeographic search to locate company contact information.

Business Source Premier. Ispswich, MA. EBSCO Publishing. Business Source Premieris a full-text database with over 2,100 scholarly business journals covering manage-ment, economics, finance, accounting, international business, and more. Contact infor-mation is available from an expansive company directory. Business Source Premiercontains over 850 peer-reviewed business journals.

Factiva/Dow Jones Interactive—SEC Full-Text Filings. Dow Jones Reuters BusinessInteractive, LLC. Company names can be searched in headlines, the lead paragraph, orthe full article. A search can be customized by selecting specific publications and byusing various combinations of words. “Canned reports” can also be acquired throughthe “Company and Industry Center.” The “Web Center” section provides links to industry-related websites.

Investext. Detroit, MI: Gale Group. Investext offers full-text analytical reports on morethan 11,000 public and private companies and 53 industries. Developed by a global ros-ter of brokerage, investment banking, and research firms, these full-text investment re-ports include a wealth of hard-to-find private company data. Investext is also a compo-nent of the Gale Group’s Business & Company Resource Center.

International Directory of Company Histories. Detroit, MI: St. James Press, 1988–pres-ent. 40 volumes to date. This directory covers more than 4500 multinational companies.Each company history is approximately three to four pages in length and provides asummary of the company’s mission, goals, and ideals, followed by company mile-stones, principal subsidiaries, and competitors. Strategic decisions made during thecompany’s period of existence are usually noted. This series covers public and privatecompanies and nonprofit entities. Entry information includes a company’s legal name,headquarter information, URL, incorporation date, ticker symbol, stock exchangeprices, sales figures, and the primary North American Industry Classification System(NAICS) code. Further reading selections complete the entry information.

Notable Corporate Chronologies. Julie A. Mitchell, ed. Detroit, MI: Gale Group, 2001.This two-volume set provides chronologies for over 1,800 corporations that operate in


the United States and abroad. Each company entry includes the company address,phone and fax numbers, a timeline, and a further reading selection. The timeline ex-plains the major events that affected the company’s history. Dates of mergers and ac-quisitions, product introductions, financial milestones, and major stock offerings arealso included in the chronologies. The Chronology Highlights in volume 2 provide ahistorical snapshot of major events for the companies listed.

OneSource CorpTech Profiles. OneSource Information Services. Concord, MA. TheCorpTech CD-ROM database covers over 50,000 U.S. technology-related companies,both public and private, headquartered in the United States or affiliated with a foreignparent company. Narrative descriptions of each company, along with sales, number ofemployees, and other details are provided by the database. CorpTech can be searchedby industry, product, geographic location, sales category, employee size, and so forth tocreate lists of companies that meet certain criteria. Percentage of employment growthcompared with the prior year is stated. Website addresses, 800 numbers, or fax numbersare frequently provided. CorpTech is one of the best sources for information on privatecompanies, as long as the company is in some way related to technology.

Statistical Universe. Lexis-Nexis. Statistical Universe provides access to a variety ofstatistical publications indexed in the American Statistics Index (ASI), Statistical Ref-erence Index (SRI) and the Index to International Statistics (IIS). Use the PowerTablessearch to locate historical trends, future projections, and industry or demographic in-formation. Statistical Universe provides links to originating government websites whenavailable.

The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones Reuters Business Interactive. This respected busi-ness newspaper is available in full text from 1984 to the present in the “Publications Li-brary” of the Factiva/Dow Jones Interactive database. The “Newsstand” link providesaccess to current articles and issues of The Wall Street Journal. Use the “Change Pub-lications” option within the “Publications Library” to add The Wall Street Journal forsearching capabilities.

Sources for Industry Research and Analysis

CI—Corporate Information. This is a meta website covering over 65 industry sectors,company and country information. http://www.corporateinformation.com

Factiva/Dow Jones Interactive. Dow Jones Reuters Business Interactive. The Fac-tiva/Dow Jones Interactive database has several options for researching an industry.One is to use the “Publications Library” to find articles in business magazines and in-dustry trade publications. Another is to select an industry from the “Web Center” list ofindustry-specific sites which gives a new list of specific companies within an industryand usually at least one trade association website. Each link provides the Web addressand a brief statement about the site. A third option is to search the “Company and In-dustry” category for company/industry comparison reports.

F & S Index, United States. Detroit, MI: Gale Group, 2001. F & S Index (formerly knownas Predicasts F & S Index, United States) provides a compilation of company, product,and industry information from more than 750 financial publications, business-oriented


newspapers, special reports, and trade magazines. Volume 1, Industries & Products,uses a modified seven-digit SIC product code to organize, by industry, articles on newproducts, market data, plant capacities, equipment expenditure, and technologies. Volume2 provides articles accessed by company name. Companies are arranged alphabeticallyand topics include mergers and acquisitions, corporate announcements, profits, and sales information. F&S Index Europe and F&S Index International are companion services.

FISonline. Mergent, Inc. (formerly Moody’s). New York, NY. In FISonline, the “ad-vanced” search option has a feature for searching by industry codes (either SIC orNAICS). Once the search is executed, a list of companies in that industry should belisted. A custom or standard peer group analysis can be created to compare companiesin the same industry on various criteria. Another option is to “build” a report for rank-ing by revenue or other customization.

Hoover’s Online—Industry Master List. Austin, TX. Hoover’s, Inc. This section ofHoover’s Online provides information for over 300 industries covering 28 industry sec-tors. Use the Industry Master list to see which industries are covered in a specific sec-tor. Select a general sector such as Banking to review the latest news headlines or reada short analysis on the banking industry. http://www.hoovers.com/feature/block/detail/0,2417,18_1757,00.html

Hoover’s Online—Industry Snapshots. Austin, TX. Hoover’s, Inc. This section ofHoover’s Online provides snapshots of 49 industries. Select a specific industry link to get a quick overview of what is happening in the industry, companies within the industry, and association and organization links. http://www.hoovers.com/industry/snapshot/index/0,3517,277,00.html

Industry Norms and Key Business Ratios (2000–2001). New York: Dun & Bradstreet,2001. Industry Norms and Key Business Ratios provides key financial measures andbusiness ratios, based on efficiency, profitability, and solvency, that are used as a bench-mark to compare the performance of a company with the industry average. Industriesare presented by the four-digit Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) code, and coveragriculture, mining, construction, transportation, communication, utilities, manufactur-ing, wholesaling, retailing, financial, real estate, and services.

Standard & Poor’s Industry Surveys. New York: Standard & Poor’s, 2001. 3 vols. S&P’sIndustry Surveys provides an overview of 52 U.S. industries. Each industry report in-cludes a table of contents, narrative description, history, trends, financial and companyinformation, glossary of terms, and a section on how to perform an analysis of the in-dustry. Industry References (associations, periodicals, and websites), Composite Indus-try Data (industry norms and ratios), and Comparative Company Analysis (comparisonof 50 major companies, their operating ratios, P/E, revenue, and so forth) complete theindustry report section. All charts and graphs cite the information source.

Web 100: Big Business on the Web. This website lists the U.S. Web 100 (top companieson the Web) subdivided by industry. This reveals leaders in online communications inevery major area of business. A list of the largest non-U.S. corporations on the Web, theGlobal Web 100, is also available at this site. http://metamoney.com/w100/


Search Engines

Google—Recognized for its advanced technology, quality of results, and simplicity, thesearch engine Google is highly recommended by librarians and other expert Web“surfers.” http://www.google.com

Vivisimo—One of the newer search engines that not only finds relevant results, but organizes them in logical subcategories. http://www.vivisimo.com


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